Two Vancouverites – one Canadian, one German refugee – are starting anew in Paris

Bikes in Pain

They are everywhere: crappy bikes. So far I’ve seen only one nice ride, a fixie. Ok, there was another fixie a couple of nights ago, but that was only sort-of-ok. And we’ve seen a couple of nicer bikes (Marin!) during the weekends on the closed roads along the Seine. Too nice for daily use, or real traffic, obviously. But overall, the rides here are pretty trashy. And then, there are those that are really trashy. Trashed. Kaputt. I have never seems so many wrecks in one city.

What’s happened here? What came first? Someone rips a wheel off and the owner of said (sad) steed just throws up his hands, or rather, shrugs, and buys another trasher instead of fixing it? Maybe the owner went back to Tallahassee or Perth and just left the poor bike behind? So, the bikes have been chained to their posts for eternity before someone decided s/he could use that wheel? Lost keys? Lost mind?